African Sunsets (Signed & Numbered-First English Collectors Edition-99 of 200 copies)

Quarter bound cream boards and black leather spine. Gilt blocking to upper board.

Not such a long time ago, when I was young, a great number of books about Africa were published. All the major publishers had a series on big game hunting and adventure books; not novels, but actual narratives of people's real lives. At that time Africa  was just that: adventure and big game hunting and the latter had not been brought to the attention of the general public.

What famous publisher today would be willing to publish the books of John Hunter, Alexander Lake, Oskar Koenig or Francois Sommer (whose respective titles were Hunter, Hunter's Choice, Pori Tupu, Pourquoi ces Betes sont elles Sauvages? (Why are these Animals Wild?), as was done in the late 1950s and early 1960s? None of course!

A widespread opinion would seem to indicate that any interest in Africa has become extinguished and, consequently so has interest in the particular kind of literature which used to characterize it. I believe, however, that things are not quite like that.

Times have changed, obviously, but in many respects the Dark Continent still exerts an incredible degree of fascination. And if it once had that power due to the attraction of a remote and unknown world, it still has it today-despite the upheavalsthat have taken place-thanks to the large wild animals that still live there and the sensations they unfailingly evoke, not least perhaps, because of an instinctive awareness that it represents the extraordinary lost world of the dawn of mankind.

I hope that interest in Africa as the land of wild, wide-open spaces remains alive and that this book can make a contribution to it. I was bewitched by Africa since I first set foot in it and immediately understood the old saying: He who drinks Africa's waters will return there to drink again.

SOURCE: Giorgo Grasselli.

Maps to endpapers, Half Title, Frontispiece, Certificate, Title, Dedication, Contents, Acknowledgements, Preface, Introduction. Map. xv plus 319 pages text with supporting colour photographs, data and information.

Two hundred copies of this collector's edition have been published of which this is number 99- Signed.

Fine with slipcase.

ISBN 978 0 9802626 1 2